A Legacy Honored - Nurse Week at Naval Hospital Bremerton

They began with a distinctive group in 1908 known as the Sacred Twenty.

From those initial plank owners in one of the five distinctive Navy Medicine corps, U.S. Navy Nurse Corps officers continue their calling of caring for warfighters from bedside to the battlefield.

While continuing their daily clinical duties, Nurse Corps officers and registered nurse civil service counterparts will take the time to honored their chosen profession with National Nurses Week, May 6-12, 2026, followed by the Navy Nurse Corps 118th anniversary May 13, 2026, at Naval Hospital Bremerton.

“We are proud to honor the extraordinary dedication, compassion, and clinical excellence of our nursing team,” stated Lt. Stella G. Swartz, Family Medicine staff nurse.

For the approximately 70 nurses assigned – including nearly 40 Navy Nurse Corps officers – this year’s Nurses Week theme, The Power of Nurses, recognizes the profound impact nurses make every day through healing, advocacy, leadership, and unwavering service.

“At our hospital, celebrating Nurses Week is an important opportunity to recognize the invaluable contributions of our nurses and to thank them for the resilience, sacrifice, and heart they bring to our mission,” added Swartz.

The midweek commencement of nurse appreciation began on Wednesday with the traditional Healing Hands ceremony, conducted by Lt. Cmdr. Solomon Han, Navy Chaplain Corps. Nurses Week continues on Thursday with the Daisy 5K [3.1 miles] run, named after the nurse’s recognition award given worldwide throughout healthcare facilities, including military treatment facilities, for those nurses ‘who display exceptional clinical skills and kindness.’ It will be a confectionary Friday with a ice cream social, followed by Brunch and Banter on Monday, CREDO [Chaplain Religious Enrichment Development Operation] team building event on Tuesday, with Wednesday featuring a cake cutting ceremony, promotion for Lt. j.g. Emmanuel Aranda and Daisy Award presentation.

“We encourage everyone to participate, show support, and help us make this week a memorable tribute to the incredible nurses who serve our patients, families, and community with excellence,” shared Swartz.

Last year alone, NHB/NMRTC Bremerton nurses were tasked with assignments across the nation as well as deployed in direct support of Navy fleet and joint operational readiness at such locales as the Navy Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, U.S. NMRTC Guam, Pacific Partnership 2025, U.S. NMRTC Okinawa, and U.S. NMRTC Yokosuka. Nurse Corps officers handle a host of specialties as part of their overall duties, including family nurse practitioner, executive medicine, nurse anesthetist, clinical nurse, perioperative nursing, maternal child, ambulatory, medical surgical, critical care, and pediatric nursing.

Although May 13, 1908, is the official Navy Nurse Corps birthday date and follows National Nurses Week - May 12 is also a significant date to all nurses. It’s the birthday of Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), the founder of modern nursing. It was just two years before Nightingale passed away that then-President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Naval Appropriations Bill, May 13, 1908, to authorize the establishment of the Nurse Corps as a unique staff corps of the Navy.

Applications to the Nurse Corps were sent to the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery from around the nation. Candidates were required to travel to Washington, DC, at their own expense and take an oral and written examination. The nucleus of this new Nurse Corps was a superintendent (Esther Hasson), a chief nurse (Lenah Higbee), and 18 other women—all would forever be remembered as the “Sacred Twenty.”

Projecting back 116 years ago when the Navy Nurse Corps came into being, Naval Hospital Bremerton was a 16 bed, wooden, two-story frame building used as ‘Sick Quarters’ on Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. America’s involvement in World War One was still a few years away.

In those times and in those conditions, such as now, the Navy Nurse Corps compassion, character and competence were demonstrated in all they did, and all the care they provided.

Just as it is today.